Off to London

Hello,                                                                                                      

Hey I am doing good. I sent you an email when I got back from Tabueron so I am not sure why you didn't get it. But I am back safe.

I will explain some about Tabueron. So it was a 24 hour boat ride both ways.  It is a flat boat and everybody sits on a platform made up of grass mats in the middle of the boat. When we got to Fanning (Fanning Island is the same thing as Tabueron) it was just like the movie The Other Side of Heaven where nobody knew we were coming. We just kind of chilled and waited there to get all of our stuff. Eventually somebody from the church saw us and got our branch president. We got settled in to our stick hut home and then pretty much went to work. Our main thing we did was we tried to find people prepared for baptism. Since people rarely go there we just tried to see who the people before us had taught. We baptized two teenage guys while we were there so that was good. Also while I was gone two other guys in Banana had their baptisms so that was also good.

There are two parts of Tabueron. And we traveled on a boat to the second part and stayed there for a couple days. There is a guy there who is a member and his name is Beto. He is way legit. We get there and he has an earring in his ear, and he is an amazing member. He took us to all the different houses and we taught the people. Pretty much all of them were Catholics but he didn't care, he wanted them to hear what we had to teach. He took us to these places and taught with us and bore his testimony and it was so cool.  I noticed that it didn't matter to him what religion people were we taught them anyways.

Fanning Island is very green. There are Bananas there and a lot of papayas and such. So we ate a lot of fruit. I got sick while I was there for a little bit, but it ended up working out in the end.

So I am being transferred as of today. Tonight I move to the village London and I shall be working with Elder Johnson.   Johnson is from Arizona originally but he lives in Spanish Fork. At least I think that is right.  He is the same intake as Elder Whitehead so he has been out over a year.  I will miss my birthplace of Banana, but it will be good working in London as well. London is more of a city than Banana. There aren't a whole lot of people in Banana most of the people live in London.  I will live in a little house that we rent from a member. It is decent, but super hot inside.

Here is a little information about my mission. 

I think there are like 150 missionaries. There are 80 missionaries in Kiribati and 70 in Marshalls. I am not sure though exactly. 

In my area there are chickens running around everywhere but people do not use their eggs. In fact I am not sure where the eggs actually go.  The chickens just wander and then when they have a party they will kill and eat them. 

When we went fishing a few weeks ago I held a shark (pictures are coming) but we didn’t eat it.  The Kiribati people who were with us took the sharks home to eat them and sell them.  I did eat sea turtle a couple of weeks ago though. I do try everything and I like a lot of it.   

Funny story, I have a picture of the mountains and the snow.  One of the converts told me that she is scared of snow and mountains since she has never seen them before.

I am glad Thanksgiving went well. We had a small celebration at Tiim’s (a rich fisherman) house in Tabwakea and they made us way good food including turkey. He had most everything imported in from Hawaii for us. Elder Hungai had never heard of Thanksgiving so that was good he could experience it. I did miss mashed potatoes and gravy though but it was all good stuff.

As for packages I did not get one. But I am hoping soon!

Other people have been getting them so we will have to see if I will soon!

Yeah I am healthy. I am doing just dandy.

Thanks for everything.

Elder Dinsdale

Dist serving on Christmas Island Thanksgiving 2015